February 24, 2012

ORLANDO — The most captivating strand of the Jeremy Lin mystique is that he came from nowhere, emerging overnight to become a star, after being underestimated and overlooked, disregarded by college coaches, ignored in the N.B.A. draft and waived twice in two weeks.

The narrative is well-established, factual in its broadest strokes and altogether flawed, or at least woefully incomplete.

Jeremy Lin’s rise did not begin, as the world perceived it, with a 25-point explosion at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 4. It began with lonely 9 a.m. workouts in downtown Oakland in the fall of 2010; with shooting drills last summer on a backyard court in Burlingame, Calif.; and with muscle-building sessions at a Menlo Park fitness center.

It began with a reworked jump shot, a thicker frame, stronger legs, a sharper view of the court — enhancements that came gradually, subtly, through study and practice and hundreds of hours spent with assistant coaches, trainers and shooting instructors over 18 months.

Quite simply, the Jeremy Lin who revived the Knicks, stunned the N.B.A. and charmed the world — the one who is averaging 22.4 points and 8.8 assists as a starter — is not the Jeremy Lin who went undrafted out of Harvard in June 2010. He is not even the same Jeremy Lin who was cut by the Golden State Warriors on Dec. 9.

Beyond the mystique and the mania lies a more basic story — of perseverance, hard work and self-belief.

“He’s in a miracle moment, where everything has come together,” said Keith Smart, the Sacramento Kings coach, who was Lin’s coach with the Warriors last season.

Smart can hardly recognize his former pupil these days. Nor can Eric Musselman, who coached Lin in the N.B.A. Development League for 20 games. Nor can Lamar Reddicks, a former Harvard assistant coach, who fondly remembers a freshman-year Lin as “the weakest guy on the team.”

“I look at him on TV now,” Reddicks said, “and I’m like, I can’t imagine that he’s this big!”

What scouts saw in the spring of 2010 was a smart passer with a flawed jump shot and a thin frame, who might not have the strength and athleticism to defend, create his own shot or finish at the rim in the N.B.A. The evolution began from there. ...

Yet an outside shot would not be enough. Lin needed to be able to consistently convert shots in the lane. And to do that, he needed to withstand the contact.

On Scheppler’s advice, Lin sought out Phil Wagner, a physician and trainer who owns Sparta Performance Science in Menlo Park. Wagner saw a player with enviable athleticism, but who lacked the explosiveness of an elite N.B.A. player.

“Most basketball players can create force very quickly,” Wagner said, referring to a player jumping off the floor. “Jeremy couldn’t.”

He compared Lin to a stretched-out rubber band — flexible, but lacking that snap-back quality. The goal was to make him “stiffer,” through a training program of heavy weights and low repetition, in conjunction with a high-protein diet. With the added muscle, Lin pushed his weight to 212 pounds from 200, while increasing his vertical leap by 3.5 inches, Wagner said. The result is evident every time Lin barrels into the lane this season.

“The biggest thing I see is when he gets intro traffic, he’s able to maintain his direction and his balance, because he’s stronger,” Wagner said, adding, “He’s a physical guard. That’s where I see his hard work and the program he did with us paying off.”

It's a turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe...
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all

130 comments:

Everyone can be a Jeremy Lin, "with study and practice and hundreds of hours spent with assistant coaches, trainers and shooting instructors over 18 months." Even midgets can make some improvement with hard work and zone-flooding. If you disagree, then you are un-American.

Why does this dude preoccupy the marquee race men so? Professional black guy Bryant Gumbel lamely perorated on his HBO show about how it's all gone with the wind once the grand old Yankees recapture the news-cycle next month. The friggin Yankees. Putting aside their dismal ratio of hometown-to-diasporic fans, how is the oldest of old-hat sports clubs going to rope in big blocks of fair weather, casual basketball watchers? Joba Chamberlain mania, Gumbel seems to insinuate. Why are the 4th estaters having to call in the Narrative Police all of a sudden?

"And they’ll be asked all kinds of inexplicable questions, from whether they prefer to wear a sweater or a coat in the winter to whether they’d let their hypothetical 16-year-old daughter use birth control. (And no, in case you’re wondering, it has nothing to do with the GOP primary)."

Initially the Hapsburg media didn't think Mozart was all that, he'd only written a dozen symphonies by the end of his tweens. But the kid would not give up and continued composing by himself at home while other of his peer group were doing stuff less useful to society. Salzburg klavier tuner Wilhelm Schmutzengruber commented, "He had the intangibles--yes I was tired of 7 am housecalls to the attic to fix their instruments but when he started jamming on the ivories you could see the hints of potential for world-historic genius. A lot of mid-Enlightenment despots missed their chance by not signing that one"

The article overcourse over states the change in Lins game, he was athletic and strong before, its true he is more athletic and stronger now but not be huge amount. A 3.5 inch change in vert and 12 pounds of muscle is not that difficult to achieve. I have seen quite a few high level athletes achieve similar changes in 3 months or so. When you see number liek 6 plus inches of vert and 30 pounds of muscle in mature athletes that is warning signal. Sparta science is a very very cutting edge program I follow there work closely.

Is Lin on steroids? I wouldn't be suprised I would guess 85 percent of NBA players on are PEDs of some kind.

Is that the explanation for his change in performance, unlikely if everyone else is using the same techniques its unlikely to make him stand out.

From there, read all of Pound, all of Eliot, and all of Wallace Stevens. Then read all of Frost, big chunks of Lowell and Plath and Berryman, and finish up with selections from John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara amd James "Jim the Jerk" Schuyler.

I did it, so can you.

Afterwards the Paul Simon reference should begin to make sense to you. Not literally, maybe; but once you've got to this bend in the road, you'll know what I mean.

I watched the entire Knicks/Heat game, and you know what? All those NBA scouts and managers were prob. right. Lin will prob. be an OK guard and share duties with Baron Davis for a while, but he is not a star.

He really should cash in now while there is still some residual Linsanity left.

The racial angle is only partly because Lin is Asian; it is mostly because he is not black. Of the 10 starting players in that game's line-up, all but Lin are black, most with heavily-tattooed thug-like appearances. Who is the average middle-class white going to root for?

I don't know much anything about basketball, but in the non-American football codes the problem is not putting muscle on (in the off season, in the woodshed) but keeping it on. So we see hulks coming out in the early season and then we watch them wither away week after week under the running load. I guess this would be the case with or without juice.(?).Gilbert Pinfold.

That's what Barry Bonds's girlfriend said: before he went on the juice, Barry couldn't do much serious lifting _during_ the 162 game baseball season. And he was just about the best player in the league, too.

"It's Paul Simon for chrissakes. Not something from the greatest poets of all time or something."

Those lyrics are great poetry. Most song lyrics aren't, but those are. After you finish wading through your Wallace Stevens, et. al., re-read the first verse and chorus from this song. Note how economical and evocative the first verse is; note the use of alliteration; note how the revelation of what caused the "bright light" and "shattering of shop windows" (the "bomb in the baby carriage") is itself tucked away like a bomb in the bottom of that verse. Note the irony in the contrast between the first verse and the first line of the chorus.

"I watched the entire Knicks/Heat game, and you know what? All those NBA scouts and managers were prob. right. Lin will prob. be an OK guard and share duties with Baron Davis for a while, but he is not a star.

He really should cash in now while there is still some residual Linsanity left."

He and the rest of the Knicks got throttled in that game, but, in fairness, the Heat is arguably the best team in the league right now. And Jeremy Lin hasn't necessarily peaked as a player. Plus, he's only had a couple of games to mesh with Anthony.

"The racial angle is only partly because Lin is Asian; it is mostly because he is not black. Of the 10 starting players in that game's line-up, all but Lin are black, most with heavily-tattooed thug-like appearances. Who is the average middle-class white going to root for?"

How about the Minnesota Timberwolves? As Matt Yglesias noted yesterday, their three best players are white -- which wasn't even the case with Boston Celtics in Larry Bird's day. And they have their own flashy young point guard in Ricky Rubio.

From there, read all of Pound, all of Eliot, and all of Wallace Stevens. Then read all of Frost, big chunks of Lowell and Plath and Berryman, and finish up with selections from John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara amd James "Jim the Jerk" Schuyler.

Derrick Rose in an interview last year in ESPN magazine said that steroids is a "huge" problem in the NBA. He then denied ever making the statement, and there was some dispute and confusion about what exactly was asked and answered:

Hmm. Would it be 'self-important' of me to presume that you were addressing... (MISS PIGGY VOICE) moi?

Just so ya know, (and not that ya care I'm sure), my work appears on a regular basis on six continents, translated into over twenty languages. They may also have it on DVD in Antarctica, after all anything's possible, but to say the truth, I've never checked. God bless 'em if they do.

So. You?

No need to rush, take your time about what you've been up to lately. I'm all ears.

In the meantime we can talk about poetry, which I find an absolutely diverting topic.

I'm not crazy about Jorie Graham, in fact I don't think there's been any major American work since late Schuyler, say circa "The Crystal Lithium."

I kinda thought these two lines went together, the 2nd one being a bit sarcastic.

Why on earth would anyone insist someone had to read all the popular English canon greats to understand poetry? I means it's great you got all that value out of your Norton's Anthology but many fans of pop musicians have been interpreting even more obscure poetic language for years before they graduate high school.

"Initially the Hapsburg media didn't think Mozart was all that, he'd only written a dozen symphonies by the end of his tweens. But the kid would not give up and continued composing by himself at home while other of his peer group were doing stuff less useful to society."

This would be a great way to motivate your kid to practice but it's not a very accurate depiction of any child prodigy, now is it?

You too can get a Nortons Anthology cheap, in numerous subjects which will allow you to feign encyclopedic knowledge on any blog. You can then list the names of poems, novels, short stories, etc along with their authors, which you may or may not have read. It's an effective enough bluff for some but not you. Toughen up, man.

Yes, the lyrics, especially the first verse about the IED, are good. Melody, eh ... but it was impressive of Simon to keep pushing himself as a lyricist even after his ability to write good pop melodies was drying up. "Graceland" is a rare album that was a hit mostly because of the quality of the lyrics (and the back-up musicians like the Los Lobos guys and the South Africans).

"Just so ya know, (and not that ya care I'm sure), my work appears on a regular basis on six continents, translated into over twenty languages. They may also have it on DVD in Antarctica, after all anything's possible, but to say the truth, I've never checked. God bless 'em if they do."

After my poem "Fakers on a Blog" gets published next month, I'd love to get your take on it.

"It's a turn-around jump shotIt's everybody jump startIt's every generation throws a hero up the pop chartsMedicine is magical and magical is artThe Boy in the BubbleAnd the baby with the baboon heart"

Did you get the "jump start" in relation to the heart?

Interesting the way you link Lin's supplement use to the medical miracles in the song. Ironic how Simon played off the fame of basketball players and you've reflected this analogy to medical fame back to the sport. Though now I'm looking at it, there are some other layers here that interest me more.

Lin is what you call a counter-stereotype-stereotype. He is used to weaken stereotypes, but he is very much the stereotype of the figure who breaks stereotypes. He's not just an individual who's different but a stereotypical ICON that stereotypes are wrong.

Btw, where did the Asian stereotype come from? Partly it's based on reality, but it's true that the reality has been exaggerated. But by whom? Do conservative Mormons, Southern Baptists, and etc control media and entertainment? Or sports franchises? It seems to me liberals, especially Jews, control much of media and public image machine. It's not like conservatives made REVENGE OF THE NERDS and HAROLD AND KUMAR. And all those Hollywood movies where Asians are geeks. So, the funniest thing about Lin-stuff is liberals are acting like they are all opposed to stereotypes when they've been using the media to promote them.

Steve, here's an h-bd question for you. How much later do Asians go through puberty? Wouldn't an 18 year old Lin be like a fifteen year old black kid, more or less. That would make Lin's bulking up at 23 kind of like what might happen to other kids during sophomore year. Also, Don't you think devout Christians less likely to cheat? (Key in Jim and Tammy Faye jokes here). But seriously.

FWIW, Lin looked godawful against the Heat the other night. Turnovers? Talk about taking candy from a baby! One for umpteen from the floor. You never would have believed he'd ever played a good quarter of NBA basketball.

He also played brutally against the Nets this week. The league may have him figured out.

I'm continually impressed by the depth and the wide range of expertise of Steve's commenters. It seems that no matter what topic is raised here, there are commenters who know it thoroughly, on a professional level. The sciences, the professions, the arts (poetry here), everything else that's worth knowing about.

Steve, if you ever feel low and/or unappreciated, you should think about that - so many smart, knowledgeable people think it worthwhile to read you daily. That says something about you and your writing. And you attracted all of these people without the help of a huge corporation like a major newspaper or a publishing house. How many of the NYT, WaPo, etc. columnists you sometimes quote would have been able to attract a large, intelligent audience without the help of their employers' prior reputations, strangleholds on the market and advertising budgets?

Jeremy Lin’s rise did not begin, as the world perceived it, with a 25-point explosion at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 4. It began with lonely 9 a.m. workouts in downtown Oakland in the fall of 2010; with shooting drills last summer on a backyard court in Burlingame, Calif.; and with muscle-building sessions at a Menlo Park fitness center.

It began with a reworked jump shot, a thicker frame, stronger legs, a sharper view of the court — enhancements that came gradually, subtly, through study and practice and hundreds of hours spent with assistant coaches, trainers and shooting instructors over 18 months.

"Just so ya know, (and not that ya care I'm sure), my work appears on a regular basis on six continents, translated into over twenty languages. They may also have it on DVD in Antarctica, after all anything's possible, but to say the truth, I've never checked. God bless 'em if they do.

So. You?"

You mean you write owner's manuals for consumer products. Like Ambrose Monk. Useful (if accompanied by illustrations) but not really what the rest of us think of as "literary".

And apparently you have confused quantity with quality. Some anonymous commenter mentioned Dickinson. She had only a few poems published in her lifetime. Yet when I googled her name (125 years after her death), I got 6,550,000 hits.

So. You?

"No need to rush, take your time about what you've been up to lately. I'm all ears."

An anonymous commenter in an obscure corner of the blogosphere throwing down the gauntlet of his artistic bona fides ("cred" to you). You're all something--but it's not ears.

"In the meantime we can talk about poetry, which I find an absolutely diverting topic."

I feel sure there is only one topic you ever find absolutely diverting. You said it yourself in your Miss Piggy voice. You're one who uses discussion of the arts as a vehicle for self-promotion and ego-gratification. Pitiful, really, but not as pitiful as it would be if you actually knew you were missing something.

I'm not crazy about Jorie Graham, in fact I don't think there's been any major American work since late Schuyler, say circa "The Crystal Lithium."

Whaddayou think, Einstein?"

This time, you're confusing knowledge with intelligence. Well, at least now we know that you're capable of some variety.

No reply necessary. I don't want to keep you from finishing up the owner's manual on the new, improved Veg-O-Matic. I am sure the Latvians are eagerly awaiting your newest publication!

The racial angle is only partly because Lin is Asian; it is mostly because he is not black. Of the 10 starting players in that game's line-up, all but Lin are black, most with heavily-tattooed thug-like appearances. Who is the average middle-class white going to root for?

What's wrong with Tyson Chandler?He's actually a pretty talented painter. One portrait of his daughter is especially good.

How about the Minnesota Timberwolves? As Matt Yglesias noted yesterday, their three best players are white -- which wasn't even the case with Boston Celtics in Larry Bird's day. And they have their own flashy young point guard in Ricky Rubio.

There are 15 teams in the Western Conference. A White player is the player for at least 5 of those teams: Dirk, Nash, Ginobili, Gallinari, Love. In the East, Philly's and Toronto's best players are White (Spencer Hawes and Andrea Bargnani). So there are plenty of White stars for the media to adulate.

The dude called me a c#nt. So I fired back. Ever been in a schoolyard? That's about the size of it, dunno why you're fixating on something so trivial.

This is a casual conversation on a blog, fer pete's sake. I'm not defending my dissertation (didn't write one, anyway. And just so you know it's not all fun and games up here on Mount Olympus -- see, I'm JOKING --, my college thesis was an utter disaster.)

No one says you have to read the whole canon just to interpret rock lyrics, but if you want an intuitive understanding of an art form, it helps to, uh, immerse yourself in that art. Wooden't ya say? You know how many wannabe writers I meet who don't take the trouble to actually READ anything? I always ask them, If you want to be a writer, then why aren't you interested in what your colleagues are doing?

People around here are so prickly. I'm at ease in what I know, and what I've done. Why don't you fellers relax?

Oh, and the reason I keep plugging James Schuyler is because he's THAT good. Do yourself a favor. Poetry is a pleasure in life, not a burden. Go read his poem "Korean Mums". You can find it online.

We read poetry for the same reason we read Krazy Kat, or Steve for that matter: cuz it's fun.

Relax, there isn't going to be a quiz! The mountains are high, and Yan Shen is far away! Enjoy life for a bit!

With modern day training, coaching, and "nutrition" athleticism can be enhanced to an almost unbelievable degree. I was a huge Dr. J fan 30 years ago, but he couldn't hold a candle to these guys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJahQv2CU1I

Re: Lin. He does two things on the basketball court that cannot be taught:

1) He gets by guys

2) Once he does, he gets the ball to go in.

And the truly astounding thing about his is that for 10 games, he did these things WITHOUT USING HIS LEFT HAND!

Against the Heat the other day, he looked like a plumber who won a "scrimmage with the heat for a day" contest, but I think this offseason, he learns to go left, and matures into a long-term NBA starter. He's better than Baron Davis right now.

What I'm seeing right now is that too many people are wanting to cash in on him for an honest appraisal of his talents. The funny thing is, though there's this mystique about him as "the unselfish PG", I suppose to draw an always unsaid contrast to the "selfish black baller", his game is much more suited to be a scoring 2-Guard than a pass-first PG. His body-control around the rim and his knowledge of the backboard's angles are elite-level, while his foot speed and handle are, IMO, decidedly not. I was constantly surprised, watching him since Feb. 4th, at his ability to simply out-wait his defender's flashy athleticism and take it in for a lay-up. All in all, I think he could have a good career as a smart guard in the NBA, properly utilized. A PG who will eventually settle down to league-average PER. But lots of people are too invested in his success right now: MSG Corp, who is seeing $$ signs in their heads with all the thoughts of foreign tie-ins and marketing to Chinatown; ESPN (alongside other sports media) who wants to further their comparative advantage in trolling their readers with Jemele Hill-like sportswriters who endlessly angst about the deep meaning of Lin's race; the millions of overseas Chinese faithful who once threatened to make ASG voting a joke even after Yao had all his injuries. Simply assuming his true potential isn't enough anymore. That's why I like your song selection so much here: That state of affairs says so much more about our society and our unhealthy "conversation" about race than anything else..."staccato signals of constant information / the way we look to us all"

When we recomputed the medians for each gender-and-ethnicity combination, significant differences emerged across ethnic groups for each gender (Table 2). Among males, blacks reported the youngest median age at first sex (15.0); whites, Hispanics and members of other ethnic groups had similar, intermediate median ages (16.5-16.8); and Asian American males reported the oldest median age at first intercourse (18.1).

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3012198.html

If age at first sex correlates with actual physical maturity, then it seems that for males, Asians on average are about 3 years behind blacks in maturation age. So a 24 year old Asian on average could be about the development age of a 21 year old black.

That makes the Lin case interesting. Lin was a strong high school player on a championship team. If he was competing against many peers (Asians) then it makes sense that he way outclassed them. Outperforming players that are three years ahead in development would be another matter. What are the demographics of the division that his high school is in?

Skip everything but the Lowell. Maybe Lowell, Dickinson and Stevens. Add Bunting, Bishop, Brodsky and Cavafy (tr Keeley and Sherrard). Even Bukowski is not always to be sneered at. If this selection doesn't include anything you like, you just don't like poetry, that's all. No shame in that.

1910-1960 is pretty much the sweet spot for modern verse in the English language. Not much worth a shit after 1970.

He also played brutally against the Nets this week. The league may have him figured out.

That was a letdown (off win over Mavs) / lookahead (Heat on deck) / one-sided rivalry (Nets are like the Knicks' little brother) / return-of-the-star game. There were lots of reasons to expect the Knicks to look bad in that game.

With modern day training, coaching, and "nutrition" athleticism can be enhanced to an almost unbelievable degree.

You need to be able to reach about 6 inches above the rim to dunk.

A moderately athletic guy who can at least touch the rim with both hands/hang on the rim with one, can dunk after a decent lifting program emphasizing the big compound lifts like squats. Olympic lifts are even better, though harder to learn and train.

Hey Steve, I recognize that it's your blog, so you can publish or suppress comments at your discretion; that's fine, I don't have a problem with it.

But I was in the middle of a stoush (as the Australians say) and you had permitted the first nine-tenths of it before you cut me off. Doesn't strike me as the action of a sporting man.

If you found the stoush tedious, that's fine, then don't run it. If you were amused for a while but thought it was getting boring or derailing the thread, then insert your own comment that "This feud has become tiresome! Begone!" and that's cool too. But to cut off my rejoinder without any notation makes it seem like I scampered off in defeat, which isn't fair.

Obviously this is all just blog commentary and it doesn't really matter in the great wide world, so my remarks as I well know don't count for much. I simply find blogs more entertaining than the MSM these days, which is why I'm taking the trouble.

Just pointing out what I think is the stand-up behavior. No need to publish this in the thread itself, it's just one reporter's opinion.

MM: "Skip everything but the Lowell. Maybe Lowell, Dickinson and Stevens. Add Bunting, Bishop, Brodsky and Cavafy (tr Keeley and Sherrard). Even Bukowski is not always to be sneered at. If this selection doesn't include anything you like, you just don't like poetry, that's all. No shame in that."

No Englanders?

I ask because I read 'Korean Mums' on the recommendation of our learned friend. I found it engaging with edifying bleakness on the back palate, but nothing Larkin hasn't done better.

We can't really blame JS for his followers, but the style was a bit NPR Lady Poet for me. If I wanted to be a c@nt (as we like to say on this thread), I would call it prose squeezed into a three inch column.

Bunting is Northumbrian if that counts as "English." But sure, can't go wrong with Larkin. Eliot is actually more English than the English. Even Ted Hughes isn't bad. I'm remiss not to mention Thom Gunn, too, I actually once had a beer with him.

But the modern decline is even sharper on the other side of the Atlantic. Facili descensus Avernus, or however it goes.

No offense, anon, but "Korean Mums" is like the ultimate watered-down New York School contemporary New Yorker poem. There's an entire class of verse to which the response of this reader is: so the fsck what? My own teacher, who was one of Pinsky's many students, used to talk about the "stakes" of a poem. No risk, no reward. The nickel slots are a lot more exciting than anything in this genre.

I don't mean to deride the entire world's production of verse before 1910 as if I was some deranged liberal. There's an awful quantity of unreadable balderdash in the Victorian era, that's all, until you get back to Byron and Coleridge and so forth.

Bunting is Northumbrian if that counts as "English." But sure, can't go wrong with Larkin. Eliot is actually more English than the English. Even Ted Hughes isn't bad. I'm remiss not to mention Thom Gunn, too, I actually once had a beer with him.

But the modern decline is even sharper on the other side of the Atlantic. Facili descensus Avernus, or however it goes.

I won't bore you with arguments along the "De gustibus" line, but if you're not digging the New York School then you're not digging the natural development of American poetry. If you think "I do this I do that" is banal, then I guess you think poetry is banal. No shame in that, as you note.

OK since I staked "Korean Mums" and value it far more highly than yourself (go back and read it a few more times), it only seems fair for you to put your own taste on the line by staking something in English say post 1940. You too, Gilbert.

"So ante up George,/the stakes are incredible,/mounting"

You know it? (I've got it slightly wrong but I'm on a mobile in the middle of a party with a lot of people y'all seem to spend your time envying.)

What strikes me the most is the period of music from which Steve pulls his lyrics. The Talking Heads, The Clash, later work of Paul Simon are all 80s. Did your romantic period cease after that?

Alluding to old lyrics makes me feel like Michael Gambon in The Singing Detective, lying in bed covered in eczema flashing back to my youth.

At least you have good taste, I discovered one of my favorite writers is an avid Yes and Jethro Tull fan. They were old hat when I was a kid and he's younger than I am! I was so disappointed.

I know you're too cool to listen to mainstream modern pop like Rihanna or Bruno Mars. White people like obscure music. You'd better start cruising Pandora for some new alternative stuff or your age will be reflected in your work.

BTW I reread your column comparing Michael Jackson to Fred Astair and it was amazing. You are unique.

It's from one of the best albums of the '80s. It probably says more about Sailer than the story he referenced it in.

But, for what it's worth, when was the last time you were concerned about your long distance provider? This was once a topic of interest. The line "These are the days of lasers in the jungle" references a paradigm change that happened during the last two decades of the 20th century, where practical magic occurred in the most unobvious of places.

Poets make poor prophets, generally, but if you squint just right, Paul Simon predicted Twitter, TMZ and YouTube in 1986. Sailer is merely making the point that past performance is not indicative of future results, but if you squint right, there's something there that you didn't expect.

If the Paul Simon song meant anything to you at some point in your life, you read the title and came to a conclusion on the subject matter at hand before you had read the first line of the post.

"This was once a topic of interest. The line "These are the days of lasers in the jungle" references a paradigm change that happened during the last two decades of the 20th century, where practical magic occurred in the most unobvious of places."

The dogs are barking. Inthe studio music playsand Bob and Darragh paint.I sit scribbling in a littlenotebook at a garden table,too hot in a heavy shirtin the mid-October suninto which the Korean mumsall face. There is adull book with me,an apple core, cigarettes,an ashtray. Behind methe rue I gave Bobflourishes. Light on leaves,so much to see, andall I really see is thatowl, its bulk troublingthe twilight. I’llsoon forget it: whatis there I have not forgot?

"The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket":

Whenever winds are moving and their breath Heaves at the roped-in bulwarks of this pier, The terns and sea-gulls tremble at your death In these home waters. Sailor, can you hear The Pequod’s sea wings, beating landward, fall Headlong and break on our Atlantic wall Off ’Sconset, where the yawing S-boats splash The bellbuoy, with ballooning spinnakers, As the entangled, screeching mainsheet clears The blocks: off Madaket, where lubbers lash The heavy surf and throw their long lead squids For blue-fish? Sea-gulls blink their heavy lids Seaward. The winds’ wings beat upon the stones, Cousin, and scream for you and the claws rush At the sea’s throat and wring it in the slush Of this old Quaker graveyard where the bones Cry out in the long night for the hurt beast Bobbing by Ahab’s whaleboats in the East.

"Briggflatts":

The mason stirs:Words!Pens are too light.Take a chisel to write.

Every birth a crime,every sentence life.Wiped of mould and mites would the ball run true? No hope of going back. Hounds falter and stray, shame deflects the pen.Love murdered neither bleeds nor stifles but jogs the draftsman’s elbow. What can he, changed, tell her, changed, perhaps dead? Delight dwindles. Blame stays the same.

Brief words are hard to find, shapes to carve and discard: Bloodaxe, king of York,king of Dublin, king of Orkney.Take no notice of tears; letter the stone to stand over love laid aside lest insufferable happiness impedeflight to Stainmore,to tracelark, mallet,becks, flocksand axe knocks.

Actually, anon, on reflection the disconnect may be simply sartorial. I feel I might be able to appreciate "Korean Mums" (and similar '70s work in the 'deep image' category, a real nadir in the "development of American poetry" - see under "Robert Bly") if only I was wearing this fantastic and critically acclaimed wolf shirt. (In case you're looking for the owl, it's on the back.)

Ben Tillman @ 3:16. Valid points, although I find it a bit of a warning flag the the guy is already "looking ahed" after 6 or 7 NBA games.

Anon @ 3:34 This how numbers can fool us. He allowed Deron Williams 38 points, in part by fouling out of the game in 36 minutes. Numbers aside, if you watched the game you saw that he didn't play well at all.

Anon @ 3:34 This how numbers can fool us. He allowed Deron Williams 38 points, in part by fouling out of the game in 36 minutes. Numbers aside, if you watched the game you saw that he didn't play well at all.

I did watch the game. I thought he played pretty well, and I think the numbers reflect it. Williams scored most of his points on 3 pointers. Lin wasn't on him the entire game. And there were lots of defensive switches on the perimeter as Williams was coming off screens.

'Actually, anon, on reflection the disconnect may be simply sartorial. I feel I might be able to appreciate "Korean Mums" (and similar '70s work in the 'deep image' category, a real nadir in the "development of American poetry"'

Mencius, you've farted some bad poetry onto the blog. Apologize!

So, what drug was responsible for the mind that created "Korean Mums". I'm assuming it wasn't cocaine.

My suggested Larkin ditty which ends with the line 'books are a load of crap.' was perhaps glib, but there is a respectable case for light-reading writers.

Imagine a latterday Hemingway (or even a middlebrow literary genius such as P.G. Wodehouse) foregoing an afternoon of marlin chasing or golfing to read the latest Salman Rushdie. Of course, such natural giants were somewhat well read, but nothing like the average Creative Writing Professor at Bowling Green State.

BTW, I did myself the service of looking more deeply at Korean Mums.

I'm not used to treating a poen as a whodunnit, but I think I got somewhere. After Googling all those arcane botanical names and finding a theme of poison and ancient medicines of the direst sort, I reflected... mums, bulges, dead things in bulges... Irish-named kiddies, the impossibility of forgetting...

So I guess we are dealing with abortion here. Is that how poetry is meant to work? Am I even on the right track?

I wonder if this Lin blowback has to do with jealousy due to the fact that Tebow didn't quite work out. Either way it is funny to see unfold.

Seriously though, 15 pounds of muscle is nothing. People can do this easily on their own in a short amount of time.

Many of my highschool wrestling teammates went to college with me and we all got a lot bigger without using roids. The key is in lifting for strength: low reps at a heavy weight. And not for hypertrophy high reps at a lower weight.

I apologize for excerpting "Korean Mums." You're right - I really didn't need to do that.

As far as I can tell the various images resulting from the British variant of "Mums" are entirely unintentional, which of course only adds to the badness of the work. The author certainly gives no sign that the image of a 50-something Korean lady buying groceries, or whatever, is supposed to hang over the poem as the audience reads. As of course it does. Perhaps 1976 was just a much less transatlantic age, or perhaps the author is just so obsessed with gardening that, unlike everyone else on the planet, the only thing he thinks of when he hears "mums" is chrysanthemums. As always with a shite poem, we'll never know.

What strikes me the most is the period of music from which Steve pulls his lyrics. The Talking Heads, The Clash, later work of Paul Simon are all 80s. Did your romantic period cease after that?

I know you're too cool to listen to mainstream modern pop like Rihanna or Bruno Mars

The artists in the first paragraph wrote their own music. This used to be the norm back in the '80's. Rihanna sings songs written by a bunch of Swedish guys, something which is surprisingly common in R&B and pop/hip-hop music.

"I wonder if this Lin blowback has to do with jealousy due to the fact that Tebow didn't quite work out. Either way it is funny to see unfold. "

What it has to do with is Asian braggadocio and hubris. Were you less arrogant, more capable of social learning, you might notice that the American public welcomes athletic superstars of all backgrounds. I don't believe there were any sour grapes over Tiger Woods either. With Lin, though, the accompanying chant that 'any day now we Asians will be your Lords and Masters" kinda leaves us all waiting for the day we can indulge in sweet schadenfreude. You're just asking for it.

"After Googling all those arcane botanical names and finding a theme of poison and ancient medicines of the direst sort, I reflected... mums, bulges, dead things in bulges... Irish-named kiddies, the impossibility of forgetting..."

"The author certainly gives no sign that the image of a 50-something Korean lady buying groceries, or whatever, is supposed to hang over the poem as the audience reads."

Being as there were a number of other mums that could've been used, I find the poem deeply flawed. Also parts of it don't seem to be contributing to the overall effect making it more prose than poetry.

"The fact that an Asian is performing well in the NBA interrupts your view of the world where whites will always outperform an Asian. Just as Larry Bird infuriated black people."

Don't refer to my comment unless you are actually going to use it in your response.

Since I don't watch sports much, I'd assume basketball players were all black. I mean the white guys I knew from our HS basketball team certainly wouldn't have grown up to be pros.

You know what asians are doing wrong but you don't care. Lin is not the wave of the future. Periodically an asian will break into a field without many asians. Then all the asians talk as if they're going to take it over, goes to their motive for doing anything, I guess.

Now someone wants a peewee NBA so more asians might get a chance to compete. What I can't believe is that it would bother an asian so much that he didn't have the height or girth to play the sports bigger men dominate. Whites accepted moving into sports like Soccer, Lacrosse and Baseball after blacks took over their old favorites football and basketball. Why would asians obsess over sports they've never played professionally? It's weird to say the least.

swimming swan? Such a bizarre post. Proves my point more than anything. Off your meds?

I don't know what Asians are doing wrong. Why don't you entertain us? The people hyping Lin are mainly white people.

What i really don't understand is why anyone should concede any field to anyone. So your saying that Larry Bird, one of the awesomest players of all time, should have just stayed home and left BBall to all the brothers?

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